Back To Life
by ravenshell
Summary: Ages into the future, the turtles are summoned from death to unlife to defeat a giant threat only they can defeat. Part of the Hunter's Grimoire TMNT Horror Fanbook on DeviantArt.
1. Welcome Back

**Back to Life: Welcome Back  
**  
He was somewhere dark, weightless, comfortably floating. His brothers and master were near, all of their friends, old and new, somewhere in this warm, safe blackness. He had no concept of how long he had been here, but it didn't matter. Now and again, his spirit would brush against that of one of his brothers, Master Splinter, April, Casey, Karai, Leatherhead… and he would be filled with impressions from them, the love and care they felt for him. He felt complete. Perfectly at peace.

Until…

Something gave his spirit a harsh yank, startling him. A tether seemed to wrap around him, pulling him away from the warmth and comfort amid his family and friends.

An unfamiliar voice sounded in the void._ LEONARDO HAMATO, LEADER OF THE CLAN OF HAMATO, NOBLE WARRIOR TURTLE, I SUMMON THEE._

He fought against it, trying to swim back to them. Some of them became worried, trying to hang on to him as he was torn away, as the words came, in a youthful, male voice.

_I BIND THY SPIRIT TO THIS MORTAL REALM TO SERVE AND DO MY BIDDING._

Leo struggled and thrashed against the umbilicus jerking him along like a fish on a hook, but it did no good… He only continued to be dragged though a tunnel of horrible blinding light, and then…

"Whoo! It worked finally! Thank goodness!" the same voice whooped, now much less formal. Leo found himself staring at a ceiling high above himself. A young man, likely in his early twenties, with a shock of dark red hair that was long only over his forehead, stooped over him. "How are you doing? Can you move? Can you speak?"

It took Leonardo a few moments to remember how his body worked, and when he did, he raised his hands above him to look at them, and cried out at what he saw, sitting up quickly to take stock of the rest of his form.

His overall shape was what he had been in his late-teen years… Fit, muscled, and spry. But his skin was not the healthy leaf-green it once was; rather, a pallid bluish, streaked with veins of black. Aside of the exposed bone of one finger, which was what startled him into action to begin with, he realized patches of flesh and shell were missing over his ribs, cheek, left thigh and right calf and foot.

Apparently Leo's brain was working just fine despite the evident decay, as he started firing questions at his captor. "What is this?! Where am I?! What have you done?! Who are you?!"

"Easy, easy… one at a time… My name's Corbin, and I'm a mage. I've had to summon you back to life… well, sort of… in order to…"

But Leo found himself unable to pay attention, critical as he knew the young man's words could be. His rotting body kept steering his gaze toward Corbin's head, his stomach giving him the message of being utterly famished. Food was right there! He lunged forward, mouth open to crunch on the man's skull, but bounced back off a gold glow. The confusion brought him, at least momentarily, to his senses.

Corbin chuckled. "As your master, you won't be able to attack me." He smirked, tapping his temple lightly. "This one's off limits. But these…" he guided Leo to a table behind them and lifted a shining silver cloche off a tray of large—probably not human—and still bloody, pink brains. "…are all yours." The turtle, in a measure of restraint, stood there drooling at the sight for a moment, then dove at them, shoveling the bloody head meats into his maw as fast as he could chew. Part of his mind registered dread and shame at what his body was compelled to do; the very thought of what he was doing made his stomach turn, but he couldn't stop it, not when it was demanding sustenance.

Only when he had sated himself, picking at the last scattered pink morsels and licking them from his fingers, did he come to his senses. "Now, what—"

"Ooh, would you look at that!" the mage said distractedly. He pointed at Leo's ribs, and Leo watched too as the flesh around the area quickly formed and knit together, pebbled skin and scales forming over the top, and regaining some of the more familiar leafy-green color. "Seems a little feeding helps restore you. I'm glad… I thought maybe you were going to rot out completely before we got any use out of you!"

Leo glared at him. "WHAT did you do to me, and why am I here?"

The young man's lips tightened as he got down to business. "I brought you back. There is an unspeakable evil, nearly an eldritch god, attacking humanity. Only one group in history, the Ninja Warrior Turtles, is ever said to have defeated such abominations in their time. After much searching, I found a spell that could restore souls to the world of the living… however, not _as_ living themselves. I'm hoping the temporary fix will give you and your brothers enough time."

"My brothers? You brought my brothers here too?"

"Would you like to go see them?"

The turtle's brows furrowed, fire birthed of anger burning in his dead white eyes. "Did you turn them into monsters like this as well?! Zombies?!"

Corbin angled his head in a shrug. "Well… not exactly. The spell chooses the form, I don't have any control over that. Yet! I need to work on it."

"I'll say…" another voice griped as a white form slid through a wall toward them. "Hey, bro. Let's get the others and get the shell outta here."

"I told you already, you can only go if I say you can go," Corbin said tiredly, as if he'd been repeating that line to Leo's brother for a while. Leo believed it. "You're tied to me."

"Bullshit," the ghost sassed back.

"Go on, try getting out that door," the mage taunted.

Raphael sneered, then made a mid-air beeline. Leo noted that his lower quarters trailed down into just a trailing wisp… Raph's ghost had no feet. Inches from the high, arched door, he was snapped back, a gold-outlined chain of light that shone through his translucent shell, attached at his heart, apprehending him like a dog at the end of a leash. Raph, though, stubbornly made three more bids for freedom, yanked back by the otherwise invisible chain each time he reached the boundary, gaining no ground and only getting more pissed off at each attempt.

Corbin made a folding motion with his hand. "You're free to roam the grounds again now, but not further."

Raph drifted sullenly back over to them. "And look at this! He threw a left punch, then a right, through Corbin's chest. "What the hell use am I gonna be if I can't even land a damn punch, much less a kick with these NO LEGS?!"

"Please stop doing that," the man mumbled, shuddering. "I don't need your ectoplasmic residue all over me…"

"Choke on it!" the hothead spat back. "You couldn't even bring me back in one piece, ya hack!"

"I keep telling you, you could manifest legs and all your other spectral powers if you really wanted." He turned to Leo. "But he hasn't. I think he's just doing it out of spite. He's been like this all week."

Leo hmmed and nodded. That _was_ perfectly consistent with Raph. The ghost-turtle in question humphed and sulked, arms crossed.

Something dawned on the turtle leader. "All week? You've had him here for a week?"

"I've had all of you for a week and a half," the young man admitted.

"But… I just got here…" Leo protested, and Corbin shook his head.

"You fought it so much, I had to keep rebinding you to your body. Even undead, you went into a sort of comatose state. You've been out for nine days."

"Yeah, Lazybones," Raph chided, and tried to cuff him on the shoulder. His hand passed straight through, causing a shudder to run up Leo's shell. "Hope you're caught up on your beauty sleep, Fearless, 'cause we got stuff to do." He turned and drifted down the hallway, making a motion with one wispy, white hand to follow him. "I'll go tell Mike you're up."

The spirit-Raph then sped to the end of the hallway, directly through the door at the end.

"Mikey is a lich, an undead mage," Corbin stated preemptively. "His talent, seems, like mine, to lie in summoning, though so far, he only seems to have been able to summon something called 'peet-za.'" Leo chuckled. Of course the first thing Mikey would summon would be his favorite food. Though as Corbin swing the door open and groaned, it was apparent the youngest of the brothers had figured out how to summon something else—more cats than Leo could easily count poured out the door. Some hissed, seeing the undead Leo, others, completely nonplussed, started rubbing against him and weaving around his ankles as he walked.

"Leo! Hey, bro! 's good to see you!" Michelangelo croaked as the two of them entered the half dark room. "Look, Corbin! I got the army started!" He gestured wrinkled hands, covered with dry skin, at the mass of cats, as the young mage slapped a hand over his eyes.

"I had really meant for you to summon an army of, you know, zombies or skeletons… Something that could fight…"

"I'm working up to it," Mikey admitted, rasping dryly as he stepped out of the shadowed part of the room, and Leo could see why—Mikey looked like he'd had every drop of water sucked from his being, desiccated skin clinging to muscle dried like jerky and protruding bone, like he'd been mummified. The crow's feet around Michelangelo's eyes were so deep, Leo couldn't make out his freckles. No eyes inhabited his sockets, but two irises of light, the bright baby blue Leo was familiar with, hung in their place.

"Mikey!" he exclaimed joyfully, glad to see his brother all right, albeit in this horrifying state.

Raph floated back toward them, wrinkling his beak. "Mike, you might want to consider summoning some litter boxes…"

"Oh… Right!" Mikey answered and began making motions with his hands.

Raphael, on the other hand, floated over to a pizza box to make a grab at a slice, which his hand went right through. "Dammit!"

Leo turned back to Corbin. "You think we'll need an army?"

The man shrugged. "Couldn't hurt. I want to give you every advantage I can for this fight. After all, right now we have the samurai pizza/cats summoner, a poltergeist that refuses to practice, and a demon who's so depressed he's… Well, see for yourself…"

Returning to the hallway, the mage opened a door to the left. The room emanated a low, red glow, which Leo eventually determined was coming from his brother himself. Donatello's red skin glowed like low-burning embers, and Leo could see two long, curved horns sprouting from above his brainy brother's eyes, but Don's posture said volumes… Hunched cross-legged on the floor, the demon merely stared at his hand as he turned it, a small ball of fire forming in it, which he then extinguished by closing his hand.

"Leo," he acknowledged with a bare nod in his brother's direction.

"What's the matter, Donnie?" Leonardo asked gently. "Aside of the obvious…"

Don gave a sardonic little snort. "What's the matter? I'm useless like this. I can't make anything… it just burns or melts in my hands. I can't heal anyone like this… Can't research… Can't swing a bo in a full circle because of these stupid things," he said, pointing to the horns, "even if it didn't catch on fire in the first couple of seconds…"

Leo looked up to see that his lich and ghost brothers had joined him. Mikey piped up, "You could just break them off, like Hellboy." But Don shook his head at the suggestion.

"I've tried… watch what happens." He grabbed hold of one horn, and gritting his teeth against the obvious discomfort, wrenched it until it snapped loose. A fiery orange glow surrounded the edges of the break, burning upward as the horn reformed itself before their eyes.

Leo mourned for his brother, knowing Don's pacifistic nature and how it upset the genius not to be able to create or care for his brothers and their allies, or even seek knowledge. It was no wonder Don was upset. He knelt and put a hand on Don's shell to comfort him, and could feel the heat of him scorching his undead hand, could smell the stench of rotting flesh burning, but didn't remove it. "It's only for a little while, Don. We'll be free of this as soon as we fight whatever this thing is Corbin wants us to take care of." He stood, once again staring the young mage in the eye. "Which is what, exactly? You said an eldritch horror only we could defeat? What does that mean?"

"Well, quite frankly…" He moved back out into the hall and into what appeared to be a sitting room with a big set of bay windows. Corbin seized the curtains and threw them back, revealing what would normally be a lovely vista of a city of white and gold towers and parapets. Leo wondered how long they had been dead, marveling at the futuristic look of haloes and orbiting objects around the peaks of the sleek buildings, holographic signs, and structures that seemed to defy gravity itself. But ruining the view was a massive, easily fifty-foot tall THING in the middle of the city, parts of which looked very familiar… On one side, the red, scaled face and wings of Kavaxas, on another, the skeletal visage of the Rat King. Waving long, whipping tentacles, in the center of the mass, the giant, yellow-eyed and screeching face of Kraang Prime. And growing out of that, the towering, commanding, metal-shielded torso of the Super-Shredder, giant purple cape flowing out around the hideous mass like a twisted flag of triumph. A tentacle whipped out on one side and one of the graceful buildings crumbled and fell, and the face of Kraang Prime laughed, pleased with itself. The Super-Shredder pointed, and the mass lurched in that direction, moving at a snail's pace, but clearly intent on destroying all around it.

The four undead turtles gaped at it. All of their worst enemies, gigantic, and all rolled into one.

Corbin made a flaring motion at it with both hands. "…that."

It was Raph who broke the spell of stunned silence among them. "What the hell is that thing?!"

Corbin let out a sigh of irritation. "Some low-level charm-chucker decided it was a totally cold idea to bring back the most badass baddies, but he did it all in one spell, so they all just came out as this massive pile…"

"At least it can't move very fast," Mikey rasped optimistically. "And the Super-Shredder isn't gonna be pulling any kicks or leg sweeps."

"Provided we can even reach him, with all the others to deal with first, and whatever's at its base," Donatello mentioned.

Raph huffed through his teeth and sailed up into the face of the young man who had brought them there. "It's your fault I can't give that thing more than the willies! Do something! Find me some way I can hit it!"

"I've told you everything I know! I've read through the book a dozen times!" Corbin fired back at him with due irritation. "You know how it's supposed to be done, Raphael, but I can't do this for you! You're just going to have to work it out on your own."

As the two of them continued to bicker, Don turned back toward the eldest. "Any ideas, Leo?"

The leader pinched the bridge of his nose, but pulled his hand away when some flesh came off from the applied pressure, and he huffed in frustration. "With just the four of us?" he opined skeptically. "It looks hopeless… We're too weak as is, we have no backup or any of your inventions, Raph can't hit or wield anything, you can's use your bo, which means only close contact… And I…" he trailed off, not wanting to bring up the consequences of his own body's frailty. "There's no way to form a plan around this! We don't have enough functional fighters to do any damage."

Corbin looked up, catching his eye. "If you need, I can summon maybe one or two more, tops. No guarantees on what form they'll come out as, just like you, but it's worth a shot, right? Just tell me who."

Leo nodded immediately. "Master Splinter."

The boy drooped. "…except him."

"What? Why not?"

"I already tried," he explained. "His spirit's a lot stronger than mine. He refused to come."

Leonardo sighed. "That steadfast ninja spirit… Go figure it'd work against us."

"April, then," Don suggested.

"Casey!" Raph called out. "Somebody around here's gotta do the heavy lifting."

"Leatherhead!" Mikey joined in, gleeful at being united with his big, if somewhat unpredictable, buddy.

Leo clamped down on his own request for Karai to be brought back. If Shredder was involved at all, she would pursue her personal vendetta toward him rather than sticking with the team. They needed a heavy hitter, but Mikey's crocodile friend tended to be unstable and similar to Karai, only have eyes for the Kraang once the attack began. "Casey and April are, out best bets." Both Don and Raph looked triumphant, while Mikey whined about not getting his pick, but Corbin stepped up to his side.

"Watch how I perform the spells, Mikey. With a little extra training in necromancy, you should be able to bring your friend back yourself."

"All right!" the youngest turtle cheered, pumping a fist in the air.

Corbin made his way to a lectern with a large book on it, placed in one corner of the hall. Waving his hands in various swirling motions, he began murmuring a rhyme. Leo recognized the words once the summoning call began, similar to the words used on himself, minus the ethereally booming tone. "Casey Jones, Blood of my Blood, Noble Warrior and ally, I summon thee! I bind thy spirit to this mortal realm to serve and do my bidding!"

A small lightning-blue portal opened near the ceiling, and a swirling mass of dust and ash swirled around, eventually forming into a skeletal structure with a skull-print bandana around its head, and stopped. Two eyeballs rolled into place in the eye sockets, starkly white against the empty blackness around them.

The skeleton slammed its hands together over its head, causing the crack of bone on bone, then made devil's horns with the fingers of both hands at them. "What up, party people?! Casey Jones is in the house!" After regarding the turtles for a moment longer, he added, "You guys don't look so good…"

"Checked a mirror lately, Jones?" Raph sassed back, thumbing toward a convenient bureau with a large mirror atop it to Casey's right.

A brief glance had Jones drawing back slightly. "Whoa… wicked!" He inspected his own finger-bones, wiggling them, noticing they weren't actually connected by anything, then looked up at the strange mage. "You the one that called me? That 'blood of my blood' jazz?"

The mage grinned broadly, nodding. "Corbin Jones. I'm your great, great… great, great, great… great… wait…" he counted on his fingers, "…great, great grandson."

"That figures," Raph put in with an eyeroll.

"Cool, fam!" Casey accepted with a series of enthusiastic head-bobs and offered a closed fist to bump. Corbin looked puzzled for a moment, but duplicated the motion, and the two bumped knuckles, whereupon Casey's finger bones scattered to the floor. "Um. The explode is s'posed to go the other way, usually…" He watched as the errant bones rolled and floated their way back into their original place. He flexed his hand to test them. "Dude, sweet!"

Preparing for his next spell, Corbin motioned his relative to the side. Casey involved himself with screwing around with Raph and teasing Don by yanking on his horns, until the demon testily yanked his head back, hooking Casey's radius and ulna along with him, making the skeleton yell and Raph guffaw even harder. The mage took a calming breath to center himself despite the chaos. With Mikey duplicating his motions, he cast the spell again, binding the spirit of April O'Neil to him.

This time, rather than ashes, a crystalline-blue cocoon slowly descended, splitting open to unfurl two cream- and brown-patterned moth-like wings, long flame-orange hair spilling across her back at their crux. Her bare legs, partly covered by a billowy dress the same cream as her wings, hung suspended in the air below her. As she had spawned facing the giant window with the rampaging monstrosity beyond it, the first words out of her mouth were a dismayed, "What is that?"

The three boys stopped squabbling at April's arrival, and even Leo and Mikey could only make open-mouthed breaths of awe. It was, of course, Donnie who first called and approached her. "April?"

"Donnie!" she called back with an echoing voice, turning mid-air with a flip of the wings that bore her aloft. Don, so eager to see her moments before, gasped to see that her face, beneath her copper bangs, was the upper half of an empty skull, without so much as eyes like Casey or even lights in the sockets like Mikey's.

"Wow, what _is_ she?" Mikey exclaimed, doing his best to follow April and get a full glimpse of her as Corbin closed his spellbook and reopened it to another section, thumbing through individual pages for the right description.

"She's a Deathshead, an undead creature sort of like a banshee… Her song is a sign of impending death and can even cause rot and decay in undead."

"Nice," Leo nodded. "Good job, Corbin!" he said, but the victory was short-lived, as Don and April, with their hands out reaching for each other, suddenly jolted apart.

"Donnie!" April cried, fighting the force keeping them apart, as the demon-ized turtle continued to try to reach for her, only to be pushed apart like a pair of same-poled magnets.

Corbin eased them to a halt, pulling them back from their attempts. "You won't be able to touch each other," he explained to Donatello. "She's a celestial and you're an abyssal, and ne'er the twain shall meet," he said as if the adage explained anything.

Don's hand hovered midair, even as his quick brain processed the mage's words, and his face dissolved slowly into crestfallenness. Eventually, belatedly, he lowered his hand.

Casey's skeletal form swaggered up next to her. "Don't worry, Donnie. I'll take care of her." He canted his head up at her. "Lookin' hot, Red!"

April turned her head away from them both with an irritated sigh. "Thanks…" she said sourly.

Donatello gritted his teeth and clenched his fists at the sight of his rival with the one he loved. Little gouts of flame spurted from his nostrils when he snorted in disdain and barely fought-back rage. It took several swipes of Raph's ethereal hand through his face to chill him enough to notice, each pass of which just pissed the specter off more.

Leonardo sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, then winced at the sharp prodding of bone where one finger had not regained its tip. "This is a mess…" he whimpered to himself, though the others were distracted enough with their own issues that they didn't notice, and Leo straightened his back and went into leader mode. "All right, guys," he called in a way that got everyone's attention. "We've got a lot to do, and not a lot of time to do it. Donnie, fill Casey and April in, and then figure out what demon skills you feel you can manage. Raph, work on your manifestation. We absolutely need you to be able to land a hit. Mikey, use those techniques you just learned from Corbin to try to summon Leatherhead and any other allies you can."

"Where are you going, Fearless?" the ghost of Raph called as Leo headed for the tall, arched doors of the entryway of the large manor. The leader reached toward a weaponry display which held all of their weapons. The apparent glass yielded to his hand, spreading away from it like flowing water. Leo didn't have time to admire, though, and grabbed what were very clearly his own dual swords, shining and well-maintained. April's tessen and Casey's sports equipment—prominently on display in the middle—all looked equally well cared for.

"Reconnaissance."

tbc...


	2. Ties That Bind

**Ties That Bind**

Though Leo continued his way toward the door, Corbin trailed him. "W-wait! I'll go with you."

"You really don't have to," the zombie-turtle stated without sparing the mage a sideways glance. A non-ninja to have to look after on this trek would only slow him down.

"I really do," Casey's progeny contested. With a look back at the others going their separate ways, he lowered his voice. "They'll be fine here, bound to the house, but if any of you get too far from me away from here, bad things could happen."

"What kind of bad things?"

Corbin shrugged lightly as he led Leo out onto the gardened terrace, to a clear, cylindrical elevator that seemed to work on magnets, shunting them the several stories to the ground almost instantaneously. "I could lose my hold on you."

"I promise I'll come back. I won't be going anywhere without my brothers or our friends."

"That's not the problem… Too far from my sphere of influence, and you could start coming apart, literally, or I could lose the hold on your spirit and might not be able to get you back…. Or your soul could fragment… All sorts of things."

Leo grumbled to himself. "That's not good news. It also means you'll have to come along for the fight. Do you have an idea of what kind of operating radius we'll have out there?"

The mage shook his head as he estimated. "Three blocks, maybe a little more? I haven't had time to test the spell's limits, but I don't want to push it if we don't have to, either."

Leo pressed his lips together firmly, masking a sigh. Things were the way they were. He would have to make do. "All right. Stay close to me, stay quiet, and do everything I say. Got it?"

"Got it!" Corbin echoed, then shook his fists, jogging up and down in excitement. "This is gonna be so GG!"

" 'GG'?"

Corbin rolled his eyes, like this was something all the young, hip people knew. "Goongala."

"You really are Casey's relative, aren't you?" Leo said flatly. "And no, it's really not," the turtle chastised, darting from shadow to shadow in the shadiest path he could see, leading away from the Jones manor. There were plenty of pedestals and beveled columns to hide behind, but the young man didn't seem to be getting into the swing of it, despite his enthusiasm to tail Leo.

"You don't have to do that," he said, strolling casually behind as the turtle slipped from tower to tower. "At least until we get closer." The ninja could tell at once he'd inherited the family lack of stealth. Leo turned his head back, and the man explained, palms upturned. "Most of the city evacuated after I… when this thing appeared, and besides, if anyone's left, they'll recognize you. You're legends, after all."

Leo could barely stop his hand from slapping his own face. "The _point_ is to keep a low profile! The less people who see or hear us, the better. We don't want some 'ninja turtle warrior' fan to suddenly mob us and alert the… um…" He realized at that moment that Mikey had not been given a chance to name the beast, so he took it upon himself. "…the baddie mash-up… to our presence." _How does Mikey do it?_ he wondered to himself.

"Oh!" Corbin exclaimed, catching on and lowering his voice. "Right!" He began exaggeratedly tiptoeing along after Leo. After a few blocks of this, though, Leo had to admit the man was right, and though he didn't fully drop his guard, lessened it to the point of merely checking around the corner for any loiterers.

"So, what can you tell me about this thing? Who brought it back? Why is it all our enemies, and why are they all stuck together like that?"

Corbin scuffed a foot. "Some idiot who probably wanted to see the Turtle Legends in action, and figured maybe you needed a bigger challenge, but cut some corners thinking they could summon them all at once."

The turtle's eyes narrowed. "You seem awfully knowledgeable on the subject. Is necromancy that common a field?"

The young man had broken out in sweat droplets across his forehead. "Not that common, actually…"

Leo gave him a wan look. "Were you the idiot?"

Corbin tried to hold back for a second, but the confession broke loose from him. "Okay, okay… Yes. I'm sorry. I amped up the spell, and it went wrong. Please just help me get rid of it?" he begged meekly.

"Corbin!" Leo tried not to shout as the imposing figure came into view near them. He huffed dismissively and hissed, "We don't have time for that now. Why can't you just.. I don't know, cancel the spell? Disspell it, or something?" Something else occurred to him before Corbin could even answer him. "How's it been able to last outside of your power-radius?"

The mage jerked his head upward at the monstrosity, the side currently toward them displaying the cackling face and one side of the demodragon's body as it hurled a fireball at a building, apparently just for jollies. "The demon, Kavaxas… He has enough power to sustain the beast outside of my hold."

"Freaking fantastic… How to we bring it down?"

The man held up one hand, curling the fingers to show that Leo's guess was as good as his.

"Great… I'm going in for a closer look. Stay here, and stay out of sight."

He didn't wait for the young mage's nod before slipping closer to the kaiju, closing the gap to about half a block.

It was truly a mash-up of their adversaries' Greatest Hits, super-sized. The Super-Shredder. Kraang Prime, Kavaxas, the Rat King. Below them came the lower-tier baddies… Snakeweed, Tiger Claw, Rahzar, Tatsu, and the rest of the Foot menagerie, who did not seem happy to be there. At the base of the cone, supporting the massive weight, was what looked like an amalgam of Footbots, using their mass of limbs to push the creature along like a giant, flat-bottomed millipede. Kraang Prime brought an enormous tentacle around at speed, knocking down a shining white spire, many of the amassed creatures laughing at the amusement of destruction, though it did not seem to have any specific aim. But none of them seemed to be able to move on their own, so in the end, it was a big and fairly slow enemy to face.

But emphasis on _big_… Leo wasn't sure how they could approach without having to contend with tentacles, vines, fireballs, rat swarms, and laser-, heat- and ice-shots.

Tatsu suddenly perked up. "Someone approaches!"

A sparkling ball shot up from street-level toward the upper tier of baddies, only for Kavaxas to snatch it in his one free hand and blow it apart like a dandelion puff. The Super-Shredder bent low across the area, searching for the source of the magic.

"Corbin…" Leo whispered to himself, and made his way as stealthily as he could in his ally's direction.

"No!" Tatsu exclaimed, pointing directly at Leo, miffed at having been misunderstood. "There!"

Leo spotted Corbin, crouched behind the single pillar that supported an elegant bench. "What are you doing?! I told you to stay back!"

Corbin looked terrified. "I thought I could cast something that would weaken him!" He froze and clenched his eyes shit as the giant, armored head passed over him.

The turtle in blue dashed to him, grabbed him by his collar and robes and pitched him into an alcove that provided more cover, leaving himself to face the threat alone. Or, rather, to dodge a tentacle, which he got in a good slash at, and a handful of laser shots, only to be wrapped by a vine and raised in front of the Shredder's face.

"So, turtle," he boomed down at him. "Even now, in this mockery of life, you plague me. The difference is…" He raised one of his giant sharp claws above the trapped turtle, and plunged it down through Leo's plastron, straight through his heart. "…Now, you DIE!"

Leo's eyes went wide, his pupils constricting to pinpoints as he was impaled on the oversized tekko-gaki, then hurled off of them through the air, far toward the other side of the city.

The landing cracked his shell as the leader in blue's corpse bounced and scraped and skidded to a halt, trailing pieces of skin and shell and flesh. Somewhere in the rough landing, one eyeball dislodged from its socket.

For minutes, the street was motionless, the only sound the malicious cackling of the Shredder kaiju and his appended allies.

x-x-x-x-x

Being stabbed through the heart by a giant knife was, shortly, not pleasant. But, given that his heart was not beating, and he had no circulating blood to bleed out, Leo figured it could be much worse.

It was, in fact. As he sat up, he found himself staring at the street and at his own lap at the same time. Gritting his teeth, he picked up his eye, dangling by the optic nerve, and crammed it back in its socket with an awful _squeeeak-pop!_ He could tell it wasn't pointing the right direction, and Donnie would not have approved of his methods, but there was nothing else for it at the moment.

A large chunk of muscle sloughed off his femur as he stood, and he recalled Corbin's words about falling apart or his soul breaking apart outside of the mage's sphere of power. He needed to make his way back to the manor, and fast. Glancing around, he found one of his katana, only to realize then that his lower arm had fallen off with it, and wondered how he hadn't missed it. Shock, Donnie had said, was a hell of a drug. So was being dead, apparently. He sheathed his sword with his arm still attached and lurched back toward where, as best as he could figure, he had last seen Corbin.

He couldn't figure why the old lady had decided the middle of a giant monster attack was a good time to come out, or why she had even stayed in the city after the evacuation notices. Perhaps senility. But it was her doom. His feet were moving almost before he could consider the implications of what he was about to do… It turned his soul if not his stomach, but it needed to be done. _He_ had to be the one to survive in order to guide his brothers to save the city. He needed to feed.

Leo's stomach steered him to her with such demand that he almost didn't have time for the apologies he uttered as he gently punched several pressure points on her weak body before she could let out more than a feeble gasp of terror.

"I am so very sorry for this… The only consolation I can give is that you won't feel anything." With a swift sword motion, the top of her skull was off, and he lifted it away by the gray bun and buried his beak in her brains.

He ate like an animal. He slurped and chewed with an open maw, tore chunks away with his teeth and dug into the old woman's skull with both hands to stuff more of her gray matter into his mouth until he ate through the medulla that controlled her body's higher functions, and she finally died. The very sounds he was making made him want to vomit. He would never have done such a thing to a human if he'd had control… and it shamed him that for having mastered control of himself through years of ninjutsu training, he had to cave to his body's base instincts and kill this human to eat her.

He wondered if this was the fracturing of the soul Corbin had warned of. He certainly felt like his body had defied him, and that he could die all over again from shame and dishonor.

But even as he came back to himself after picking her skull clean, he noticed how fast his own flesh was regenerating; much faster than even after the five beef brains the mage had initially provided him with. He watched new muscle cover his leg, the hole in his chest seal up, and felt the dent in his carapace pop back out and fuse together. At a stretchy pull at his detached elbow, he reached back for his arm holding the katana, and watched as the tendons seemed to search for each other to reattach. The whole arm came back together with a crunch of bone on bone. Leo stared at it, wiggling his fingers to test that they were indeed as good as new, albeit bluish.

"Leonardo!" he heard Corbin approaching, searching for him, maybe a block or two away. "Leo!"

He picked up the woman's skull-cap and placed it back on top of her head, then hefted the body in his arms and set her in an upright kneeling position in a dark, hidden alcove beneath a staircase. Unable to take her blank, staring eyes accusing him, he reached out and brushed them closed. He tucked her legs beneath her and crossed her arms over her chest, then put his own hands together and bowed to the corpse.

"I am so deeply sorry you had to sacrifice yourself for one who should not be here. Know that you gave your life so that others may yet live."

He had no sooner backed two steps away from the body and its hiding place when Corbin rounded the corner.

"Leo! Am I glad to see you!" The young man's eyes skimmed over him with concern, clearly noticing that the turtle-zombie was no worse for wear, but this was neither the time nor place to point it out. "We gotta get back to the manor and get the others. That thing is all-out going on the attack!"

x-x-x-x-x

"Leo, we've got problems," Raph announced, soaring over as Leo and Corbin entered the manor.

"You don't know the half of it," the zombified leader quipped back. "That thing is headed for the main part of the city—"

"I named it Shred-zilla!" Mikey rasped. "No-go on mi amigo largo. Still just getting kitties."

"Leo," April said with concern, though her skull face showed nothing, "I-I don't know what I'm supposed to sing. Somehow I don't think 'Old Town Road' is gonna do it…" She leaned in close to him. "I dunno if you know this, but I wasn't exactly in Chorale…"

"I would think you're supposed to be going for something like an operatic banshee wail," Donatello put in, trying to stand near her and being pushed away by the force between them. "You'll do fine," he encouraged. She looked up at him with her empty sockets, and he couldn't figure out how to read her emotions. "Is that a smile, or a glare?"

"Oh! Uh, sorry! No, it was a smile!" her words rushed out in return, as she buried her skull in her hands.

"Any luck with the firepower?" Leo asked Don, pulling him away from the awkwardness.

The demon-turtle sighed and turned his hand over, generating a fireball only the size of a baseball. They'd be lucky if Donnie managed to singe off one of Tatsu's eyebrows.

Leo held his own sigh. "All right, it'll have to do. Raph, anything?"

"Does it look like I'm holding my sais?!"

That was a clear 'no'. Leo's lips pressed into a grim line. "Keep trying. Casey, you got anything for us?"

The skeleton trotted up, clattering as he came. "Check it out, Leo… You know the old trick where you fake taking off your thumb joint to freak out your little sister? Well, now I can do it without faking! Watch!" He pulled the joint a foot away from his hand, then let it go. With a faint aqua glow, the bone flew to join the rest of his hand.

This time Leo did give an exasperated sigh. "_That's_ what you've been working on?! Casey…"

"Alright, alright…" he confessed. "There's also this…" The young man detached his arm at the elbow and threw it across the room. Halfway into its trajectory, the bones changed direction, zigzagging their way back to their owner, seemingly at Casey's direction, until they reached their original position and reattached themselves to his humerus with a _crack_.

Leo's eyes widened, impressed. "Now that's more like it. Any idea how they hold up against crushing, or fire?"

"I'unno! I just learned this trick in the last hour, ya know? I was happily chillin' in the afterlife before that."

Donatello leaned in and snatched the bone at the end of the skeleton's pinky finger. "Hey! Personal boundaries, Donnie!" the glaring skull snapped at him.

Don ignored him, focusing on the tiny bone in his hand as it ignited and burnt until it was nothing but smoldering ash. Casey let out a dismayed yelp. Don looked up to him and Leo. "Burns like regular human bone when immolated. Better stay out of Kavaxas's line of sight."

Casey nodded and turned to Corbin with his fleshless palm open. "Stick me, great-great-grand!"

Corbin dutifully ran to the weapon rack, which yielded to his reach as he grabbed the two hockey sticks and baseball bat, on display like a family crest. He bowed his head as he offered the weapons to his skeletal ancestor. "Goongala," he stated reverently.

"Goongala!" Casey shouted in return, holding the stick's blade skyward before sheathing it behind his back. Raphael watched the Jones's theatrics and slapped an ethereal hand across his face.

Outside the grand window of the manor, a neighboring tower came crashing down, taking out much of the outside balcony and garden.

"We're out of time!" Leo announced. "We're just going to have to go with that we've got! April, you're up first. Stay high enough to evade Kraang Prime's tentacles. The rest of us will try taking out what we can on Shred-zilla's lower tiers with ranged attacks for as long as we can before moving in."

"What about me?" Raphael asked, unsure of himself due to his inability to make contact with anything.

The leader considered for a moment with his chin in his hand, before deciding, "Stat rep. Keep an eye on everyone, and report back to me how everyone is doing, and relay to the others when I hear someone needs backup."

"What, that's it?!"

Leo scowled at him. "Unless you'd rather stay here and be the team cheerleader…" He made a motion to the others to move out.

April and Mikey grabbed their tessen and nun-chucks from the rack as Raph could only cast a forlorn look at his sai. "Yay, team," he muttered. He hovered over to his skeletal best friend as Casey sauntered past. "Case… grab my sai, wouldja?"

"Nah, I got enough weapons. Thanks, though."

"Not for you! For me! In case I manage to figure this ghost-touch thing out!"

"Oh, right! Sure." Snagging the weapons from their spot on the rack, the vigilante looked down at his waist, at a loss as to what to do with the sai since he had no waistband or pockets to stick them in, much less any pants. "Erm…" After a moment's thought, he stuck the middle tines through his lower ribs. "There we go. Metal, right?" He spread his arms wide to display his armed ribs.

Raph smirked back. "Definitely metal." He curled his fingers in to bump fists with Casey, even through his knuckles passed through his friend's.

Casey shuddered a bit. "Dude, that feels hella weird, even with no skin."

The specter rubbed his chin. "Hmph… Maybe there _is_ something I can do besides cheerlead…"

tbc…


	3. Play The Hand You're Dealt

**Play the Hand You're Dealt**

Outside, April took off from the crumbled balcony with a flutter of her wings, carrying her up above the beast within a few wingbeats. Her singing started with a simple "La-la-la…" which, to her surprise, judging from how she backwinged from her own melody, developed into a high, clear, ethereal tone in moments. Continuing her siren song, she circled the enemy abomination, and indeed, as Corbin had said, much of the flesh of the amalgam developed visible wrinkles and rot-spots. Many of its mouths groaned or wailed, pained by the process.

Watching from the terrace, the group of undead fighters and Corbin felt a blossoming of hope as April's spell affected the Shredder-kaiju. Raph soared off the balcony in its direction.

"Raph!" Leo called in warning.

"I got this, Leo! She's not gonna rot me… no flesh, remember!" He waved his arms to demonstrate as he floated on his back. "Just gonna see how many heebie-jeebies I can give these guys!"

Leonardo blinked. "Can't argue with that, I guess…" he muttered to himself. "The rest of us should head down to the gr—" he had begun, watching what he had thought was the Super-Shredder slumping from April's song, when Snakeweed let out a screech and the massive mutated ninja quickly straightened with one of the weed's tendrils in his hand. Before anyone had time to shout a warning, the improvised whip lashed out, catching the Deathshead square in the chest. Her singing ceased as she let out a yelp of pain, quickly losing altitude and flipping in the air so that her wings were useless.

"APRIL!" Donatello screamed and launched himself from the balcony, heedless to the fact they were five stories up.

"Don!" Leo shouted, too late to stop him.

"Jesus! Donnie!" Casey echoed. The remaining team members rushed to the edge in horror. But, about twelve feet from becoming a horrible, horned splatter, gouts of flame spouted from the demon-turtle's feet, forcing him aloft like a pair of jet-boots, and he flew off on a trajectory to intercept April's fall.

Leo heaved a breath of relief, clutching his non-beating heart.

Mikey let out a dry cough that might have been a chuckle. "Nothing motivates Donnie like saving April…" he rasped out.

"We'd better get down there, before anybody else gets the idea to look before they leap!" the leader announced.

Corbin backed toward the door. "Go… I'll stay here and see if I can find something that'll destabilize or banish that thing." Leo's eyes shifted to him suspiciously, but he gave the man a nod before dashing to the elevator with Casey and Mikey.

x-x-x-x-x

Don managed to get beneath April, flinging his arms out to catch her, but as she descended, she suddenly hit an invisible barrier that bounced her back up from him. She let out a shocked, but not hurt, "Oof!" The demon rolled his eyes and hovered lower and further to intercept her again, and ended up landing and progressively leaping to bounce her along on their forced separation cushion, lower and slower each time, until they finally skidded to a stop with him on his shell and her hovering four inches above him. They both broke into a fit of nervous giggles.

"Thanks, Donnie," her empty skull face said genuinely.

"Anytime," he beamed back. "Are you hurt?"

"Not enough to matter," she said, rubbing her back where the vine had caught her. Think you can give me a boost back up?"

He grinned. "Anything for you, sweetheart!"

With a nod, she backed off a few paces and ran toward him, where he held his hands laced, ready to toss her. Though her foot never touched his hands, his throw launched her upward, and repeating their bouncing sequence in reverse, he managed to launch her higher on each catch until she had enough altitude to flutter along on the wind again. Don followed her from the ground to join the others for the melee fray.

x-x-x-x-x

Michelangelo circled the massive pile of baddies. He had used up his store of shuriken and managed to score a few slashes with his kusarigama against Snakeweed, but Tatsu knocked his blade out of the air with a sure hand, and then he found himself dodging a slam from Kraang Prime's tentacle, gouts of fire from Hothead's mouth, and a set of claws from Rahzar. He paused, halfway around the Shred-zilla cone, to catch his breath, and ended up facing several of the other Foot mutants, who, unlike Rahzar and Tiger Claw, did not seem keen on fighting.

"Get us out of here!" Bebop complained at him.

"We didn't sign up for this!" Fishface agreed.

Rahzar growled from just out of range, "It's not like we can do much ninja-ing, being stuck in this… _thing_…"

"Why are ve here?!" Rocksteady added. "Ve are not even de bad guy anymore!" he protested, pointing to his warthog cohort.

Baxter Stockman, always the butt of the joke, kicked his legs, about the only thing he could move, his front end buried deep inside the mass of flesh. Muted shouts reached them, though no one could tell what he was saying. They had a pretty good guess, though, and it would have needed censorship.

Unable to do anything for them, Mikey shrugged his apologies and moved further, freezing under a dead-eyed gaze from beneath an Inquisitor's hat. "OH, RATS!" he shrieked hoarsely, then coughed out a puff of dust, his undead lungs not being kind to him for that yell.

The skeletal face with its atrocious dentistry, a single rat perched on his shoulder, chuckled down at him. "Oh, rats, indeed! This city of humans thinks itself so clean, and yet, in its depths yet lies the squalor and the tiny beasts that thrive there, far their superiors!" With a motion of his hand, the tiny creatures poured from every manhole and storm drain, suddenly forming into a massive squeaking tidal wave that came crashing down at him. " 'Oh, rats!' A cry of dismay from the lesser species… And mutated turtles as well! Devour him, my army!"

Mikey backflipped twice to escape the bitey wave of death. A couple of rats clung to him, but dropped off as those dry chunks of his skin peeled loose, and they decided he wasn't very appetizing after all. He looked down at his own hand, holding it in a similar position as the Rat King's. "Well, I guess it's gonna take an army to beat an army!" He waved his hands in the motions and words he had been perfecting for the past week, and in a high, cute voice, called, "Heeeere, kitty, kitty, kitty!"

Two oval portals opened up bedside him. Hundreds of meowing cats poured through, immediately pouncing upon and devouring—or sometimes playing with—the banquet of prey laid out before them.

Many of the Rat King's remaining minions broke and ran despite his thrall over them, though plenty still remained. He called them to him, and formed them into giant rats… like the ones he had mutated himself, but made up of a mass of rats. "Ah, Caligula, Nero, you are here in spirit! Attack!"

The little blue lights in Mikey's eyes bugged out at the new foes, and he quickly repeated his motions and incantation, this time louder and without its cutesy edge. "Here, kitty, kitty!" The portals opened again, though this time, it was no cuddly kittens that stepped through. Out stalked a jaguar and a black panther. The skeleton man gasped, and pushed his attack nevertheless, but could only watch as the big cats knocked large chunks of his creations loose with the swipe of a paw or a massive bite.

"You think you can defeat me?!" the inquisitor shouted in a desperate threat. "I will only call more! I will bring thousands, millions!"

"Well, that's a pity, 'cause I only gotta call one more!" Michelangelo yelled back raspily in triumph as he moved his hands in the now familiar pattern. "Leatherhead, come out and play, big buddy!" The Rat King let out a gasp of fear and dismay as Mikey's huge portal opened, and yet the figure coming through had to duck to clear its head: a massive bipedal crocodile, wrapped and adorned like an Egyptian god laid to rest, though this one was very much up and moving and not looking pleased about it.

It glared at him. It growled. The loyal rat on his shoulder fled, and he saw no more, abandoned to the dark of blindness. Then came the claws.

x-x-x-x-x

Raphael emerged through Tiger Claw's midsection, leaving the mutant with a nauseated look as Leonardo deflected shots from the tiger mutant. Leo looked up at him expectantly.

"Casey's chopping bits off Snakeweed from a distance. Mike's taken out the Rat King and managed to call up Leatherhead, who's just itching to fight with Kraang Prime. Don is on his way back to the fight, and April's circling and going after Kraang Prime's tentacles with her tessen and waiting for the word before she starts singing again," the spectral turtle reported.

Leo nodded, chopping the barrel off the tiger mutant's laser pistol and dodging the remains of the weapon as it was thrown at his face. "Is Don doing any better with his attacks yet?" Raph shook his head. "Alright… Have Don help Casey take out Snakeweed… he should be susceptible to fire, and then team up against Tatsu before going after Kavaxas. He's going to need all the time to practice he can get. And send Mikey to take care of Rahzar while Leatherhead goes after Kraang Prime."

"Right," the ghost said with a flat edge, still not thrilled about being demoted to errand boy. He dove back through Tiger Claw's torso, pleased to hear the proud tiger gag like he was hacking up a hairball from Raph's ghostly touch.

He plunged through the center of the meaty mass of the cone, dodging the white wisps he saw throughout it, and came out through Tatsu, who seemed unnerved by the contact as he finished calling up to Shredder, "The moth is preparing to sing again! You must take her out before her song weakens us again!"

Raph swung a few ineffective punches through Tatsu's chest and head, disturbing the blind fighter even more. "And that's enough singin' outta you, Stevie Wonder," he taunted, and let out a mean laugh as the man struck out at the source of the voice and only impacted Raph's spectral body, getting more of the unsettling ectoplasm on himself.

"Master, the enemy's ghost affects me! Call the demon for his aid! I cannot fight him! Their own demon comes to rejoin the fight, and—"

Looking around desperately for a way to stop the sharp-eared blind man from spilling all their plans to the Super-Shredder, Raph stuck his face back into the fleshy cone, locating the white wisp near Tatsu's chest. He reached out a see-through hand to take hold of the wiggling tail, surprised when he was successful, though the soul—that had to have been what they were—resisted his pull. Pushing and struggling against the ether, Raphael slowly gained ground, while Tatsu seemed to be going into convulsions, grabbing at his chest as though he was having a very painful heart attack.

"Not again!" the man screamed as the soul detached from his heart and worked its way up his throat and out his mouth at Raph's persistent yanking. His body collapsed as his spirit was torn free from him.

"BOO-yakasha, motherfucker!" the turtle-ghost shouted down at him triumphantly, then floated there, still gripping the soul like a balloon on a very short string. "What do I do with this, now?" he wondered aloud. Letting go of the soul would probably just let it find its way back into its owner's body. Looking around for a solution, he spotted a fancy trash bin and stuffed the soul into it, figuring that would at least hold it for a while. A moment later, the bin emitted a mechanical grinding sound, and little translucent white bits floated out and disappeared like wisps of smoke. Raph winced as he read the lettering on the side: Compostables Only. But, nothing he could do about it now. "Oops," he said with a nonchalant shrug and went off to deliver his messages.

x-x-x-x-x

Don arrived back at the fight, slightly out of breath from the run, the fire jets from his feet having given out. He simply could not find the common thread of what triggered it, and now was not the time for analysis and experiment. Most of the way back, he watched April as she circled over the kaiju, taking shots where she could with her tessen. Her new form was as gorgeous as he old one, he mused, though he missed her face.

Thus engrossed in her, he didn't notice until he approached Shred-zilla what a bloody pulp was hanging off the side. But before he could really process much about the mulch of flesh and bones, a great hand grabbed him by the face, snapping both of his horns off as it waved him around like a rag doll.

"Oh, hello, Leatherhead," he said flatly, then _oof_ed as his searing skin finally registered to the rampaging beast and the crocodile dropped him on his shell.

"Ya all right, Donnie?" his younger brother asked, trying to help Don to his feet, but withdrawing as his dry, withered hands caught fire, and he had to slap them against his thighs to put them out.

The demon sighed. "Do you mean presently, or just in general?"

"Kraaanggg!" Leatherhead interrupted.

"Come on, LH, Kraang is over this way…" Mikey coaxed, backing and making beckoning motions with his hands to lead the croc to his preferred target. "You're s'posed to go give Snakeweed a hot-foot," he told Don, which heartened him a bit, and he headed off to join Casey, with a number of Mikey's summoned cats trailing him to soak up his radiated warmth.

The skeleton was busy, hacking away at three of the weed mutant's vines as they came at him. "Yo, Donnie!" Casey hailed as he came in range. "You here to turn up the heat on Stinkweed?"

"Ohh, you know it!" He rubbed his palms together, ready to summon a fireball in each. "'How about a little fire, Scarecrow?'" he said in his best Wicked Witch voice, and ignited the spells in his hands… which ended up being the size of marbles. He drooped in disappointment.

Casey looked on. "Seriously?"

"Look, I've never had to do this under pressure!" He threw the two embers at the plant mutant, who had the good grace to wince a little upon contact.

"They make pills for that," Jones snarked.

"Stop it…" Don said warningly as Snakeweed tried to snare him with a vine, only to squeal when Don's body burnt it to what looked like a used matchhead.

Despite that small victory, Casey shouted at him, "Why you gotta be so useless, Donnie?!"

Affronted and wholly taken aback, the demon-turtle faced him. "Ex_cuse_ me?!"

"You heard me! If you're gonna be so shit at this, why don't you just pack it up and go home?!"

"I'm sorry, and you managed to do _what_ exactly with a blunt object against this ugly-ass weed?!"

Said weed looked offended. "I'm right here…"

"Seriously, you're too weak to get the job done, Don. If you're not even gonna try to do some fucking damage, just get out of the way!"

"WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING ME?!" Don finally gave in and yelled at him, snorting flame.

"I'M GETTING YOU FIRED UP! I DO THIS TO RAPH ALL THE TIME! GET MAD, DUMBASS!" the skeleton shouted back, with more volume than someone with no lungs should have had. "Is it working?"

The demon blinked at him. Go figure, he thought. Casey was never particularly bright, and when the only tool you had was a hammer, every problem that came before you looked like it could be solved by blunt-force trauma. Nonetheless, it was a good try. He turned his hand over to call up another fireball, this one back to the size of a baseball. "Better, but not much."

"Damn."

"You guys have issues," Snakeweed put in.

Don leered at him. "You know, maybe all I really need," he said as he approached, "is a hug!"

"No!" the weed screeched. "Stay away from me!"

"Huuuug!" Don sang, extending his arms to enfold the mutant.

"Stop! Get away! Nonconsensual!" he screamed, trying to whip the scalding red turtle away with his vines, only to have them burnt to crisps, the rest of him smoldering and then catching alight as the demon wrapped his arms around his trunk and held fast until no life remained, only fire.

Casey waved his hockey stick in front of his face. "Man, burning weeds always stink so bad… And I don't even have a nose!" He looked over to Donnie, who joined him. "Feeling better now?"

"Oddly, yeah. A good hug always does me good." He opened his arms toward Casey. "You want one?"

"Noo-ho-hooo," the skeleton replied, backing away. "I'ma go see how many whacks it takes to get to Kraang Prime's tootsie center!" he said, spinning his hockey stick in his hand.

"Stay out of Kavaxas's range… your body's not gonna hold against his fire!"

"Yes, Mom!" he sassed back.

Casey caught up with Raph on the Kraang Prime side of the beast. They fist-bumped out of habit, and Casey had to shake his hand to get rid of the heebie-jeebies it left him with. "Ready to wreck some Kraang?"

Raph replied with an eager growl, then tilted is head in disappointment. "Wish I could, but nothing I do actually affects it. My ecto-goop doesn't even faze it."

"Those asshole brains are pretty slimy already… Can't you just, like, yank its soul out like you did Tatsu?"

"Believe me, I was gonna… It doesn't have one!"

"Kraang don't have souls?" the skeleton asked. "Well, that explains a lot…" With his free hand, he drew his goalie stick. "Well, then, let's give it something that _will_ affect it!" He sent both of his forearms, attached to his sticks, at the giant pink blob, smacking it with each, letting both spin off to a distance to gain speed, then smacked it again. The Kraang let out a displeased squall and whipped its tentacles around, knocking one of Casey's arms out of the air. The goalie stick found its mark, dealing a blow to the tender tentacle, and Kraang Prime screeched in annoyance.

Unnoticed by the ghost and the skeleton, the alien creature's distress caused the Super-Shredder to turn his head. "Kavaxas," he said lowly. The demon took notice and ceased his volley of fireballs at random combatants. He readied an especially large projectile, out of sight of Kraang Prime's attackers.

In a swift motion, the ninja monstrosity twisted the torso of the entire kaiju, bringing the demon into "firing" range, and Kavaxas released his flaming ball of death directly at the skeleton.

"Casey!" Raph shouted in warning, but the skeleton vigilante had no time to dodge and took the shot hard to the ribcage and spine. The handles burnt off Raphael's sai, and the tines clattered to the ground, along with the ashen remains of Casey's legs and torso. His skull rolled to a stop beneath where the ghost was hovering.

"What? What gives?!" he cried, until the reality of the situation sunk in. "Aw, man!"

Raphael stared down at his best friend's head, and rage flooded him. Nothing but nothing could piss Raph off more than someone who dared to hurt the people close to him. The spirit turtle let out a roar of pure anger. Behind him, a bench snapped off of its single spindly leg and flew with blinding speed, catching the unprepared and gloating demodragon square in the face.

The turtle-ghost huffed a few times, the peak of his rage spent, and he blinked at the stunned and wobbling Hothead, his spectral hands, and the broken pedestal behind him. "Oh, _that's _how it's done!" he grinned in realization and cast his hands out toward his handle-less sai. The metal prongs vibrated against the pavement for a moment before lifting easily into the air, hovering at Raph's will, then shot off at the monster, one stabbing the Kraang directly in one star-pupiled eye, the other barely making a pinprick in Kavaxas's armor-scaled neck. It wasn't the stellar result he had hoped for, but he would just see how well the demodragon did with a few rounds of having dumpsters and furniture thrown at his face.

x-x-x-x-x

Leo yanked his katana from Tiger Claw's chest, having finally dispatched of his enemy, who had put up quite a fight despite being unable to move from the hips down. Fortunately, his adversary didn't have the same undead capabilities as himself, and a strike to the heart did take the tiger down. Nearby, Michelangelo was working on Rahzar, who didn't seem very into the fight, with the tiger mutant down, none of his fellow Foot mutants putting forth any effort against the enemy, and being hemmed in by two very big cats and numerous small, angry ones.

They'd taken out a number of the lower-tier threats, but the three worst had hardly taken a scratch, other than from April's degenerating attack. He had been counting on Don to be able to face up against Hothead, but with Raph's report back that Donnie's fire wasn't going to cut it, they were up against a wall.

Leo had to consider; none of their team had taken any major damage, but with a cunning enemy like Shredder calling the shots, you didn't want to tip your hand to him either. Calling a retreat so that April could use her banshee attack again would be doing just that. They would be taking friendly fire, but it might give them the edge they needed.

Besides, they were still dead and none of them was supposed to be here anyway. It was the one scenario Leo was willing to allow sacrificing his own brothers and friends in a winner-take-all battle.

He motioned to April, who hovered for a moment, taken aback at the order, waiting for him to repeat it to indicate that yes, that was what he meant. When he gave the motion again, she began her siren song.

Like before, her victims' bodies withered, splotches of rotting flesh appeared across their skin, scales, and grey matter. From where he could see Michelangelo and Rahzar, the zombie wolf was not faring well, various ribs and his lower jaw detaching and falling to the ground beneath him. But Mikey wasn't taking the attack well either, small holes opening in his already dry tissues, through which dust streamed out in clouds. He moaned, unable to do anything about the damaging effects and weakened by the song. His summoned cats scurried away out of range.

Pieces of Leo's own dead flesh started falling away, and he realized he didn't have time to dally. Plunging his katana into the meat that held the giant body together, he started climbing.

Shredder narrowed his eyes as he realized the moth girl was again weakening them, now at a height well out of reach of a mere whip.

"Footbots! Migi e oshiagette!" he boomed.

In unison, the robots supporting the bottom of the creature reached down with whatever limbs they had available and gave a hard push off the ground, lifting several feet off the ground and spinning the mound of flesh to the right, before coming down with a solid BOOM. Leatherhead, slashing and clawing at Kraang Prime, was dislodged and fell four stories to land on hard his back, turning instantly into a pile of dust, wrappings, and Egyptian jewelry that was sucked into a portal that opened above the remains… a degrading end for a fierce fighter, to have one's remains cleaned up by a dimensional Roomba.

But the impact was secondary to Shredder's plan. Turning had been the key.

"Kavaxas," he demanded, and the demodragon, now facing April, gave and evil grin.

"Like a moth to the flame," he quipped and breathed an enormous gout of flame at her.

Her most vulnerable part, her mothlike wings, caught and burned so fast, they may as well have disintegrated, and she plummeted once more, not singing: screaming.

x-x-x-x-x

Donatello witnessed the stream of fire, seeing it just in time for it to hit the love of his life. "APRIL!" he screamed and dashed to catch her once again. He managed to get under her and bounced her to a stop again, but there was nothing left of her wings, the rest of her blistered and scarred from the flame. She hovered, rag-dolled, four inched above his arms, held out to cradle her, unable to do anything else to help her.

"April!" he cried, hot tears sizzling to steam on his cheeks. "I'm so sorry… There's nothing—I can't—"

She reached weakly out to him, making the motion of cupping his cheek, though her hand was repelled from him. "It's okay," her featureless skull said, but he could hear the weakness and pain in her voice. "We'll be together again soon."

"April!" he wailed as her feet and legs began turning to ash.

"And, Donnie?" she started weakly, then fixed her empty eye-sockets on him with solid resolve, and with a measure of the determined pride he loved her for, added, "Burn it to the ground!"

With a rush of pride himself and a whoosh of flame, the turtle-demon's form ignited in a blaze that coated him a foot thick. "You've got it, sweetheart!" he yelled triumphantly as her skull crumbled to ash and was taken away by another portal.

This time, on a whirlwind of fire, he had no trouble jetting himself back to the fight.

Hothead scoffed as he saw the blazing demon returning. "Fool, do you really think fire will harm a demon?"

Don tossed a pair of fireballs—now as large as watermelons, but light as feathers—at him. Kavaxas leaned to the side to dodge one, the second ripping through his wing. He screeched at the unexpected pain. "What is this?!"

The demon-turtle smiled broadly. "Something a demon like you would have no comprehension of. These flames are born of love," he said, floating into Hothead's personal space as the demon flinched and shrank back as much as it could.

"No! Get away!" he screamed, trying to swat the other demon away with his claws, having them easily blocked with ninja prowess and burned within Don's aura. He screeched, flailing as the flames consumed him.

Donatello took a deep breath, and as he exhaled, uttered, "April." The resulting blaze encompassed him in a wide sphere of purple flame, which he then directed and pushed into Kavaxas, who, with a scream, was incinerated.

x-x-x-x-x

Leo caught Mikey as he collapsed, sending up a huge cloud of dust. "Mikey, I'm sorry. That was a mistake…"

The blue lights in Mikey's eye-sockets glowed up at him. "You're all good, bro. We all know you gotta make the hard calls."

"Maybe you should sit this one out," his brother told him, resting him on the ground in a kneeling position.

Mikey coughed out another dust cloud, and shook his head. "Sitting down, yes; sitting out, no. Go… I'll send in what I got from here."

With that, Leo patted his shell and left him. Most of the flesh on one leg had deserted him, and he found himself lurching and shambling toward his target, with a stomach urging him to feast or else crumble. He had to drag himself up the horrible flesh cone, over the remains of Tatsu, nearing the Super-Shredder with as much stealth as he could muster, and as much as his body would cooperate, which was… nominal. It took all the effort of climbing a steep mountain peak. He plunged his katana into the flesh lump time and again to haul himself upward, until he hefted himself up once more, and came eye to single, purple blood-dribbling eye with Kraang Prime, who screeched and garbled with evil intent, swinging its tentacles at him.

He was nearly transfixed, and lashed out to the left out of pure instinct, severing the oncoming tentacle. He stared, pierced and slashed the other tentacle in half without taking his eyes away. Drool issued from the corner of his mouth. Hopping up on top of the monstrous creature, he dropped his swords and fell to his hands and knees, where he began clawing and biting, filling his mouth and demanding stomach with the juicy alien brain matter.

The outer layer was actually a bit tough and chewy, he found, the more tender and delectable bits further down beneath the inner skull. Kraang Prime continued to scream and flail its tentacle stumps as he dug further and further, burrowing in like a worm, chewing away more brainy flesh as he went. The muscle of Leo's leg regenerated, the other rotting and missing bits healing or regrowing entirely, though he didn't notice, absorbed in his feast. He ate so much that his lower plastron split open, his stomach bursting its masticated bits of brain matter down the side of Shred-zilla, then rehealed, only to do so again as the turtle zombie ate and ate.

x-x-x-x-x

As soon as Don took over dealing with Hothead, Raphael shifted his attacks to the one remaining enemy: the massive, oversized Super-Shredder. The ghost spectrally threw everything he could find at the monster, sai, benches, dumpsters, small futuristic vehicles, an uprooted tree, yet Shredder blocked most, and what did score a hit didn't seem to faze him in the least.

"Time to switch tactics," he muttered to himself, sailing directly at and through the former-man's chest, coming out his back with a grip on a soul that seemed loath to move from its moorings, though the Shredder bent slightly at the yanking at his heart.

"You think you can simply rip my soul away, like that weak fool, Tatsu?" the kaiju growled mockingly at him. "You dare to think I have not also mastered control of my astral form?"

Shredder turned and swung a punch at the turtle poltergeist. The tekko-gaki went straight through him, and so he was unprepared for the blow of the fist, which knocked him head over shell several times. "What the…?!" he muttered, shaking off the shock while the Shredder laughed at him, then seized him by his wispy little end. Raph took a number of hard punches, and though they didn't hurt per se, looking down, he noticed that some bits of him looked thinner after each contact. What happened if he got killed as a ghost? he wondered. Would he go back to the afterlife, or was his soul destroyed and he just stopped existing? But while Shred-zilla was beating the ecto out of him, he was suddenly swarmed by thousands of cats, and if that wasn't distraction enough to make him lose his grip on Raph, repeated blows to the eyes by a goalie stick attached to a skeletal arm did. He reached out and seized the arm, crushing the bones in his massive hand and letting the hockey stick fall.

Raph decided it was time to call in their expert in weird astral shit and zipped down to where Leo was… dear god, was he _eating_ Kraang Prime?! "Leo!" he hollered at his zombified brother. "You better get up here! We got problems! Well, _more_ problems…"

Leo's dead white eyes seemed to track him for a moment, but the zombie-turtle could not be dissuaded from his meal.

"Leo, come on! I need you up here! The Shredder… he can _hit_ me! You gotta come help—"

One of the dead eyes passed over him again, but there was no recognition in it. Leo just kept cramming handfuls of bloody Kraang brains in to his maw. The side of his stomach split open, and a pile of chewed up gray matter spilled out. Raph was glad he didn't have a stomach, or he would have lost his lunch. In fact, it was weird that his spiritual stomach didn't turn at all. He almost felt cheated out of the experience. Almost.

"Okay, well… In your own time," he told Leo over his shoulder and headed back to do what he could with the others.

x-x-x-x-x

At some point, Raph's voice came to Leo's ears, but his own mind would not allow him to respond, singularly focused on yummy, yummy braaaaiiiinnns. Eventually, he bit through something that made the giant brain creature's squealing stop, the giant alien finally lobotomized, though he didn't stop glutting himself on the giant purple-bleeding brain until the blood-flow to it ceased.

Coming back to himself, the turtle pulled himself out of the deep cavity he had burrowed into Kraang Prime's head, surveyed the damage he had done, then heaved and emptied his most recent stomachful of brains over the side. Truly, he hated how much he had enjoyed it.

Battle was continuing above him. He watched as the Super-Shredder was pummeled by a trash can, a fireball, a skeletal arm with a hockey stick attached, Raph's handle-less sai, and a very angry kitten to the face. Most, he deflected. What did connect did little damage. Every once in a while, Raphael would soar in at the Shredder's back to start pulling at something… And he had to give Raph credit for having the guts, ectoplasmic or otherwise, to try to steal the Shredder's soul. Shredder whirled on him and dealt him a nasty combo of punches, and Leo understood the implications, and Raph was looking a bit faint in places, his spirit clearly—almost literally— having taken damage.

He needed to get in there and help his brothers and Casey take the beast down. He reclaimed his katana from where he'd dropped them, about to start climbing to reach his foe, but a voice from below stopped him.

"Leo!" Corbin shouted, running toward the kaiju, huge spellbook in his arms, tails of his long coat flapping behind him. "I found a destabilization spell!" He looked up at the fight, and the pulped and incinerated remains of many of the enemies, except the remaining Foot mutants, who, refusing to take part in the fight, were just complaining amongst themselves. "Aw, am I too late?"

"Just in time!" the zombie called down to him. "Do it!"

The young mage propped the book open on a pile or rubble, probably part of his own balcony, and began reciting the spell with the accompanying arm-movements to cut the Super-Shredder off from what remained of Kavaxas's power, the only thing sustaining his so-called life. The patches of deteriorating flesh enlarged as the sparkles from Corbin's spell rained over him, and he began to sag, finally weakened.

"Leo!" Raph hailed, floating over. "I've been tryin' ta pull Metal Mouth's soul out, but he keeps blocking me! Nothing else we do even makes a dent in this guy!"

"Corbin's destabilizing him, but we'll need to sever his soul from his heart… We're gonna need a two-pronged assault. Make like you're running from the fight, and be ready when I strike."

Raph nodded, smirking, and returned to the fight, letting the Shredder pummel him once more, then bee-lining into the distance.

With no ground to stand on, Leo had to climb the massive torso, using his swords as pitons and having to swing around on them wildly to avoid attacks from the one-time man he was scaling. The Super-Shredder's glare darkened as he realized who his opponent was. "Was a single death at my hands not enough for you, turtle?!"

"I've had better," Leo replied, stabbing and swinging around the giant's attacks as Shredder had to deal with a tiny, swift opponent inside his normal defense range, his hand-weapon useless at such a range, his hands unsuccessfully trying to knock the turtle away like an irritating crumb on his chest-plate, while also succumbing to fireballs and a leopard. At one such swing, the zombie ninja swung up onto his arm and ran up over his shoulder, and with a stunning backflip, Leo plunged both his katana deep into the unshielded cavity of the Super-Shredder's evil heart.

At the same time, speeding in like a comet, came Raphael, with a newly manifested foot producing a powerful flying kick to the Shredder's astral body, knocking his soul loose. Done pussyfooting around, the ghost flew through him, ripping his soul out through his spine. The kaiju crumpled. Using one foot to pry his katana loose, Leo leapt clear as the entire cone of flesh capsized, with dismayed cries from the remaining mutants as it landed on them and they were put out of their misery.

The four undead turtles met Corbin on the ground. "That was so epic!" the young mage squealed, dancing in place.

"What do I do with this?" Raph asked, still holding onto the Shredder's soul, black, shriveled and tarry as a smoker's lung. He stuck out his tongue. "Bleah, feels like sandy grease…"

"I've got an idea," the still-burning Donatello said, with a cruel edge, as he held out a hand, producing a wide pyre in it.

"Wait," the mage said. "I've got something." He flipped a few pages in his tome, and recited while moving one hand. "Unwelcome soul, from this mortal shore/ Begone and burn forevermore!" The soul burnt away to nothing as Raph let it go. At the turtles' confused looks, he explained as he shut the book, "I sent it to Hell. He won't be coming back. Thank you guys, so much! You really got me out of a bind there!" With a couple of motions in the air, he added, "I release you from your bond to me. You're free to return to the afterlife now."

"Thank god," Mikey rattled weakly, seeping dust from his hole-ridden corpse. "'Cause I could sleep like the…" He collapsed before being able to finish the pun, his entire body turning to sand and a portal opening to hoover the remains up.

"Good enough for me. I'm Audi 5000," Raph announced, dissolving into a swirl of mist that was likewise portaled away.

"Time to shuffle off this mortal coil. Again," Don added, with a touch of bitterness. He pointed an accusatory finger at the young man's face. "Leave the experimenting to the experts."

Corbin laughed somewhat guiltily. "Right," he said, then added under his breath, "I'll get it right next time," causing Leo's eye to dart to him suspiciously.

The mage extended his hand to the remaining leader. "Leonardo, it truly has been an honor getting to see and fight with you."

Leo held his hand out, but then grasped Corbin's arm and pulled him in with ninja swiftness, punching several critical pressure points so that the man was frozen. He unsheathed one of his swords. "I really am sorry, Corbin, but I can't allow there to be a 'next time.' Besides…" he said, with a clean slash through the top of the skull, "You've rather got me hooked on the taste…"

x-x-x-x-x

Epilogue:

"HEY! GUYS? HELLO?! Raph? Donnie?"

Casey watched the remains of Shred-zilla turn into a giant whirlwind, getting sucked up by a glowing portal, and wished for two things: a camera, and that he could do devil-horns at it. Oh, and the rest of his body would be nice too. One arm had come back to him, hockey stick in tow, and most of the bones of the other hand, but, counting his skull, that was all that was left of him. And as the sun started going down, he realized he'd been left behind.

Grumbling, he clamped his jaw around his arm bones and started dragging himself along. It was going to be a long night.


End file.
